What Happens in the Wild

I’ve been setting up wildlife cameras at natural pinch points and along trackways to see what’s going on when I’m not looking. I’ll admit, it feels invasive. Candid moments of animals are caught without permission, my cameras quiet enough that subjects don’t glance up even for the second or third shot, a black bear strolling past, a fox at a trot, a bobcat on its way somewhere. You never know what you’re going to get.

There’s a rising wave of nature surveillance where “critter cams” reveal hidden lives, becoming part of the scientific toolkit for biological fieldwork. It’s exciting to return home with memory cards and sit down at the screen to see what showed up. Thousands of images will be grass and boughs triggering my devices in the wind, and then a mule deer appears on its daily rounds, or a cottontail rabbit returns to its preferred nightly hide, eyes glowing bright.

As if taunting my watchful endeavors, two friends who knew where I’d placed a camera hiked out to it, stripped naked, and went feral. Painting their faces and bodies in mud, carrying wooden clubs, they went for shock value for me to pick up as I scrolled through images. The camera caught several snapshots as they approached with suspicion and performative wonder. I laughed in dismay, saying over and over, that’s just beautiful. Beautiful because I’m the fool and they pointed it out so succinctly. What am I trying to capture by observing wildlife when they don’t know I’m there? Is it any of my business?

Science seems to say yes, it is our business. Camera trapping, as it’s called, is a research tool used to estimate animal abundances and understand their movement. It is a way of assessing species richness and behavior. In fields of management, the technique is indispensable, right along with collaring and banding. I was once a fan of non-management, letting animals do whatever they are going to do, but as I come to understand the range of human impact on every species, I realize we are managing no matter what we do. Having more data leads, one would hope, to more beneficial treatment from us.

Personally, tracking is my preferred way of seeing who came through. As soon as winter sets in, the first snow is a canvas where every motion leaves a mark, tiny bird wings on a laden branch as fine as a fluttering eyelash. What had been simple woods the day before turns into traffic. With these cameras, now I can see who exactly is leaving the tracks. I feel like a thief, a bit mischievous, seeing a deer scratch its nose with a hind hoof unaware I’m scrutinizing at a later date.

I’m doing this for a book project that has me peeling back the surface to see what animals are up to underneath. But the question tugs at me, should I be seeing them? Their privacy is something I appreciate, even envy. They are not captured the way we are, not subject to their passwords being stolen, or adds popping up as soon as they start talking about something. Isolation from us and our crowded, watchful habits is their saving grace. 

Like most humans, my business is to know what’s going on. Same for other animals. They leave scrapes and scents and come sniffing for who has done the same. These cameras are what I’m doing to join them. But as this remote monitoring technology becomes cheaper and more widely available, I pause, wondering if my watching is more of the same problem, pushing deeper into lives of animals who do best when we’re not there.